Research Methods

• Traditions of Psychological Research : Positivism, Interpretation, critical theory, psychodynamics.
• Paradigms in Psychological Research   : Macro theory and microtheory, conflict paradigm,  symbolic interpretive, structural functionism, Feminist Paradigms
• Dietetics of Psychological Research : Idiographic and Nomothetic Explanation, Inductive and Deductive theory, Qualitative and Quantitative data, Pure and Applied research.
• Ethics of Psychological Research : Informed consent and deception, freedom to withdraw, protection from harm and debriefing, removing harmful consequences, confidentially. 

• Research Methods :  Descriptive observation : Naturalisitc observation, case study, survey research, sources of error in descriptive research
• Relational Research : Introduction, data for a correlation study, applications of correlational methods.
• Experimental Method  Qualitative field study : naturalism, ethno methodology, grounded theory, institutional ethnography, participatory action research
• Research designs : Introduction, purpose Types : pretests –post test, variants of basic designs, randomized group, correlated groups 

• Quantitative Data Analysis

Descriptive Statistics : measures of central tendency, measures of variability,  correlation coefficient, regression analysis, normal distribution.

Inferential Statistics : sampling, Standard Error Formula (mean, S.D. correlation) testing differences between two groups – t test, F test (one way Anova, two way Anova, ANCOVA) 

Non Parametric Tests : Mann – Whitney, Wilcoxan Signed –ranks, chisquare

• Qualitative Data Analysis : Introduction; linking theory and analysis -  Discovering patterns, grounded theory method, semiotics, conversation analysis; Qualitative Data Processing : Coding, Mamoing, concept mapping; Computer programmes for Qualitative data – Leviticus as seen through NUDIST; the qualitative analysis of quantitative data.      

• Interpreting Specific Results : Problem of scale attenuation, regression artifacts
• Interpreting Patterns of Research : Reliability and replication, converging operations.    

Goal of a research report : General APA guidelines for writing style format : some elements of working style, guidelines for typing or word processing

Elements of an APA – style research;  submitting a manuscript for publication, writing a research proposal.